Key terms

Question 1

Define locale

Answer 1

This is the place where something happens or is set, or that has particular events associated with it.

Question 2

Define location

Answer 2

Where a place is, for example the coordinates on a map.

Question 3

Define perception of place

Answer 3

This is the way in which place is viewed or regarded by people. This can be influenced by media representation or personal experience.

Question 4

Define placemaking

Answer 4

The deliberate shaping of an environment to facilitate social interaction and improve a community’s quality of life.

Question 5

Define sense of place

Answer 5

This refers to the subjective and emotional attachment people have to a place. People develop a ‘sense of place’ through experience and knowledge of a particular area.

Question 6

Define positionality

Answer 6

Factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, religion, politics and socio-economic status which influence how we perceive different places.

Question 7

What are experienced places?

Answer 7

Those places that a person has spent time in.

Question 8

What are media places?

Answer 8

Those that the person has only read about or seen on film.

Question 9

Define character of place

Answer 9

The physical and human features that help to distinguish it from another place.

Question 10

What are exogenous factors?

Answer 10

Those that have an external cause or origin. The demographic, socio-economic and cultural characteristics of a place are shaped by shifting flows of people, resources money and investment.

Question 11

What are endogenous factors?

Answer 11

Those that originate internally and may include aspects of the site or land on which the place is built, such as height, relief, drainage, soil type, geology and the availability of resources.

Question 12

What are agents of change?

Answer 12

These are the people who impact on a place whether through living, working or trying to improve that place. Examples would include residents, community groups, corporate entities central and local government and the media.

Question 13

Define meaning

Answer 13

Individual or collective perceptions of place.

Question 14

Define representation

Answer 14

How a place is portrayed or ‘seen’ in society.

Question 15

What is place memory?

Answer 15

The ability of place to make the past come to life in the present.

Question 16

Define re-imaging

Answer 16

Re-imaging disassociates a place from bad pre-existing images in relation to poor housing, social deprivation, high levels of crime, environmental pollution and industrial dereliction. It can then attract new investment, retailing, tourists and residents.

Question 17

Define rebranding

Answer 17

Rebranding is the way or ways in which a place is re-developed and marketed so that it gains a new identity. It can then attract new investment, retailing, tourists and residents. It may involve both re-imaging and regeneration.

Question 18

Define regeneration

Answer 18

Regeneration is a long-term process involving redevelopment and the use of social, economic and environmental action to reserve urban decline and create sustainable communities.

Question 19

What is media?

Answer 19

Means of communication including television, film, photography, art, newspapers, books, songs, etc. These reach or influence people widely.

Question 20

What is qualitative data?

Answer 20

Information that is non-numerical and used in relatively unstructured and open-ended way. It is descriptive information, which often comes from interviews, focus groups or artistic depictions such as photographs.

Question 21

What is quantitative data?

Answer 21

Data that can be quantified and verified, and is amendable to statistical manipulation.

Question 22

Define objective

Answer 22

Not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

Question 23

Define subjective

Answer 23

Based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes or opinions.

Question 24

Define suburbanisation

Answer 24

A movement of people and services away from the inner city to the edge of built up areas.

Question 25

What is placelessness?

Answer 25

Could be anywhere, it lacks uniqueness and the ‘genius loci’. Global forces have had a greater influence than local forces.

Question 26

What is a descriptive approach?

Answer 26

The idea that the world is a distinct set of places and each is unique.

Question 27

What is a social constructivist approach?

Answer 27

Places are the way they are because of a particular set of social processes occurring at a particular time.

Question 28

What is a phenomenological approach?

Answer 28

This approach looks at how people feel about places rather than what is physically there (or not there).

Question 29

Define insiders

Answer 29

People who feel like they belong in a certain place and that is their home.

Question 30

Define outsiders

Answer 30

People who feel out of place in a certain place and that they don’t belong.

Question 31

Define gentrification

Answer 31

When the status of an inner urban area which has become unfashionable and neglected and the status is improved.

Question 32

What are the advantages of gentrification?

Answer 32

• Improves social and economic status on an area
• Boosts economy and employment
• Attracts tourists
• Crime rates fall

Question 33

What are the disadvantages of gentrification?

Answer 33

• Expensive
• Displaces low income residents
• Conflict between insiders and outsiders
• Increased house prices

Question 34

What is the difference between regeneration and gentrification?

Answer 34

Regeneration refers to policies and practices designed to deal with problems such as urban decline and decay where as gentrification is when the status pf an unfashionable and neglected is upgraded and the status is improved.

Question 35

Define homogenisation

Answer 35

The process of making things uniform or similar.

Question 36

Define heterogenous

Answer 36

Diverse in character or context

Question 37

Define globalisation

Answer 37

The increase of trade around the world, especially by large companies producing and trading goods in many different countries.

Question 38

What is GIS?

Answer 38

A spatial system that creates, manages, analyse and maps all types of data.